


Among The Cobbles of Kensington

by incorrigiblerose



Category: Top Gear (UK) RPF
Genre: F/M, The daily mail is always cause for angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-14
Updated: 2014-04-25
Packaged: 2018-01-19 09:15:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1463890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/incorrigiblerose/pseuds/incorrigiblerose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is my self-indulgent fic that goes with the tried-and-tested format of 'girl in top gear crew goes out with hammond and generally gets along with everyone marvellously', but is also a story that I'm just not bothered enough to invent new characters for and is quite Clarkson-centric.<br/>As always, this is a fictitious product of my rabid imagination. Contains swearing and alcoholism, much like my life. Another relevant warning is that my continuity can be pretty tenuous, which is what happens when you write at two in the morning. Enjoy!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“Mona. Monaaaaah.” Jeremy dragged the second syllable out the way a bored, sarcastic teenager stretches the chewing gum from between their teeth. Desdemona didn't turn from where she was tracing a finger along the map she had spread out across the bonnet of her car.  
“Yes?”  
“Anything interesting?”  
“No, the scale on this map is rubbish. Go irritate Andy or something.”  
Jeremy stepped up beside her, leaned forward, and pinned down the far corner of the map as it fluttered in the breeze. The early Italian summer crowded in around the background hum that the arrival of three rangies, three howling supercars and a white Audi created. The wind swept over the grass and through the trees like a secret. Insects chirruped away out of sight. With a sigh, leaning back to rub at her eyes, Mona left the map to Jeremy to tame for a moment.  
“So how far do you want to go still today?” she asked, leaning back against the bonnet. One hand rested on the grey wing mirror.  
“I want to get this stretch done...” Jeremy ran his hands across the map to work out the wrinkles in it, leaning forward and squinting.  
“We going to get that done in what light we've got left?” she asked dubiously. It was getting on towards four, and the sun would set faster as they got into the mountains. The alps loomed above them in a grey mass, the foreland falling away below into stark rock.  
“Maybe,” he said. “If we do, it's less of a trek to the hotel tonight. If we don't, there'll probably still be enough material anyway.” He shrugged, then turned away, pulling out his phone. Mona planted one hand in the middle of the map that was once again trying to make a break for freedom.  
“Can you get Andy to bring me a drink?” She asked his back.  
She only got another shrug in reply, but his steps gained direction again as he wandered away.  
Soon enough, Andy strode over, perpetually ruffled and purposeful. He plonked a bottle of water beaded with condensation onto her windscreen wipers and looked at her purposefully.  
“Right,” Mona said. “Jeremy and I aren't sure we'll get all the way up to the hotel before dark, but he thinks we'll have enough footage with the drag race back at the track. Yes or no?”  
“I'd be inclined to say yes,” Andy said. “We're set for tonight?”  
“Absolutely. Everyone's going to be happy to see our beds,” she said. “The cars are being picked up at lunch tomorrow, and that's when I'm leaving as well.”  
“You hedged your bets there,” he said.  
Mona shrugged. “If we'd needed to film more on the mountains tomorrow morning, the manufacturers could always lend us the same models back in England.”  
“Good then,” Andy said. Mona felt the familiar flush of satisfaction of something under control, and leaned back on the map to crack the lid off the bottle of water. She took a big gulp, twisted the cap back on, and turned to fold the rather infuriating map back up. Another seventy miles to go today – but with the working convoy they had, it could take forever.  
At a shout and a clap from Andy, the crew converged to brief the rest of the afternoon, and Mona sidled around until she could slip an arm around Richard's waist where he stood slightly back, taking advantage of the slope in the ground to see over heads.  
“Enjoying yourself today?” she murmured.  
“Yeah, I am rather. It's hectic, but it's nice.”  
“Good, good. I'm probably going to be going ahead to the hotel, and it's got a pool, so I'll see you later? Enjoy,” she said.  
“I will. And I can't wait.”  
“Wonderful!” she leaned in to brush her lips against his cheek and barely jumped when he took advantage and grabbed her arse playfully. “Very subtle,” she snickered. She disentangled herself and wandered back into the pack of crew before Andy could finish his run briefing.  
“Mona will be our lead car for a while,” he finished. “Get going, radio check in five.”  
The loose group – there were only about ten of them - didn't scatter immediately, but more congealed into the groups assigned to each range rover. Mona poked her head into the group that'd be in the second range rover and grinned around.  
“Anyone need a ride?” she asked. It was always easier to have someone there to manage the radio while she drove, especially in the mountain passes. There was always a certain amount of care taken to not overwhelm the three presenters with information, but the crew chatter was incessant, even though they didn't use the radios any more than necessary. One of the soundmen, Aidan, put his hand up. “Yep! Priscilla's going to take over from here for me,” he said. A woman sitting on a rock between the lot of them grinned, white teeth flashing below a pair of florescent blue ray bans. Sound recordists always had the best sunglasses, while the people behind the cameras squinted into the sun.  
“Great. Go tell Andy and get your stuff,” she told him. The smile hitched on his face, but he trotted off anyway. It wasn't that Andy didn't like people riding with Mona, but he had very strict views on who wasn't pulling their weight. Aidan would be fine, though – he had keen ears for the radio, which she knew Andy knew she needed when she was lead.  
She traded jokes with the rest of the crew for a moment, then retreated to her car, flicking the key open and shut impulsively with one hand before yanking open the door and sliding into the grey leather drivers' seat. The v8 purred to life beneath her feet and she set about letting it warm up, the air conditioning filtering through slowly as she leaned over into the passenger side and clearing out the crap, letting it fall behind the seats and shoving her satchel onto the backseat. Then she switched on the radio that sat in the cupholder and listened to the crackle of the other cars tuning in one by one. Aidan returned with an overnight bag over one shoulder, and she hit the boot release button for him. When he slid into the seat beside her, he took control of the radio and plugged in a separate microphone, then turned it up a touch. She slammed her door.  
“All cars, all cars, this is Wilman in Range One. Can we have a radio check please?”  
One by one, the radio check came through. Jezza, Hammond, and May, then the second and third rangies, and finally Aidan pressed the button on the microphone and said,  
“This is Mona.”  
“Good, let's go.”  
Mona put the Audi into gear and they swept out of the parking lot, a set of growling, thirsty engines behind her. She spotted Richard right behind them in the baby blue Jaguar, serious but relaxed, one hand on top of the wheel, and she smiled.  
The convoy rolled out.  
“Mona, maintain a half-mile ahead of us,” Andy's voice crackled over the radio again.  
“Copy that,” Aidan replied. Mona put her foot down, and the car leaped forward in a squeak of tyres. It wasn't going to be a short drive, but it was work and kept her on her toes.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some swears. Also it's oddly satisfying to unleash this story into the wild.

The light of the dawn was spreading pastel across the sky outside the window.   
Slowly, Mona extricated her arms from under the wide, warm duvet and stretched, the vertebrae in her back flexing pleasingly, waking up properly. She sighed. Arms twined around her waist, and she couldn't help but giggle, opening her eyes, seeing nothing but a curtain of her own hair.   
She pushed it away, and a pair of eyes, big and brown, stared back at her, crinkling into a smile at the edges.  
“Morning to you too,” she said.   
“Glad you're awake,” Richard said.  
“I thought you were going to go running?” Mona brought an arm up and slung it around him, the cotton of his tee softening the lines of his shoulders, warm and assuring and taut after a summer of consistent exercise.  
“You are a distracting woman to sleep beside,” he said.  
“You were watching me? Not creepy at all.”  
“I-”  
Mona searched out his lips before he could protest properly. They kissed slow and easy, lust stirring like vertigo somewhere forward of her spine.  
“Not that I'm saying that I find creepy staring attractive,” she said consideringly when they broke for a second, “but I'd stare at you too.”  
“So it has to be mutual?” His hands played across her hips.  
“Pretty much.”

They turned up to breakfast late, dawdling through the double glass doors in full view of the rest of the crew. James smirked into his coffee as Richard dropped his room key in the empty place setting beside him and wandered off in search of food to match his appetite.  
Mona stood at the buffet, eyeing the chef standing behind it, phone tucked into the back of her jeans. She wasn't quite packed yet, but it was barely an overnight bag she had with her. And yet its contents had still spread themselves far and wide across the hotel room. Still, anything last-minute she could just get thrown in the car. Richard, on the other hand, was leaving to film around the Italian lakes for a few more days and would fly back.  
She really fancied a full English breakfast.  
'Hungry?' Richard asked.  
'Very funny. I am starving and you know it.'  
'Well, at least it's mutual.'  
Mona laughed, leaned forward and ordered an omelette, then headed towards the coffee machine.  
She tried not to be too saccharine with Richard around work, she really did, but some mornings were difficult. She was about to retreat to James' table where Richard had a stack of toast and was gainfully employed deshelling a pair of boiled eggs, but out of the corner of her eye she spotted Jeremy glaring at his phone while Andy stood between him and the door, sympathy and exasperation playing off against each other on his face.  
Andy said something. Jeremy scrolled down on his phone and scowled, and for a moment Mona was convinced that he was about to throw the phone at the mirror across from the doorway. But he steadied himself, hit the home button and shoved it back into his pocket viciously, crossing his arms across his chest.  
Mona had crossed the room and, at the pause in the silent conversation, shouldered her way through the door, coffee before her like a peace offering. In case her presence wasn't entirely welcome - everyone had their off moments, even though she and Jeremy could be said to be close.  
“You okay there? I have-”  
Andy had looked up sharply as the door opened, but his shoulders relaxed an inch when he saw who it was.  
“Thanks,” Jeremy said as he took one of the mugs and slurped a gulp off the top.  
“No problem.” She looked to Andy, raising an eyebrow.  
He considered for a split-second, opened his mouth to talk, and was interrupted.  
“People are being cunts and writing shit again, essentially,” Jeremy spat.  
“Ah,” she said. “And this is particularly bad?”  
Andy shrugged and picked a mug up off a spindly table already occupied by an oversized vase of fake flowers.   
“Pretty much,” he said. “Something about a wannabe porn star?” He asked Jeremy.  
“No idea who she is. You know what it's like at awards, you just talk to who you're near! At least for a while. I don't actually have the manners of a baboon.”  
“No, not always.”  
Jeremy shot her a look. She half-smirked back.  
“Anyway, my agent emailed it to me. She has feelers in the tabloids. So I have warning. To get on my best behaviour.” He shuddered.  
Mona grimaced sympathetically. “Awful. What a bunch of twats. Must be a slow news month for them.”  
“Something like that.”  
Andy was standing back, looking like he had gained an instant headache in the last five minutes.  
“Come on. Breakfast will help.”  
But Jeremy shrugged, turned on his heel, and disappeared back towards the lifts, taking the coffee with him.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, warnings for tenuous characterisation, dodgy dialogue, and swearing.

“So what's up with Jezza?” James asked her surreptitiously as they wandered out of the dining room as people scattered to check out. Knowing Jeremy's temper and that he wasn't going to go anywhere, he hadn't been about to run after him, but the sidelong look he was giving Mona was concerned.  
“He got a headsup about what's about to be in the papers about him,” she replied.  
“Oh, for...” James jabbed at the buttons in the lift. “That's rough.”  
“Yep.” She shrugged. “Not much that any of us can do, though.”  
“No. Ah well. The wheel of interest will turn on, and he'll survive. Which is the advantage in being him, I suppose.”  
Mona nodded, twirled her keys around her fingers, and stepped out of the lift. James was another few levels up.  
“I'll see you before everyone leaves,” she said as the doors slid shut. James nodded, smiled back at her and vanished.  
Richard was just zipping up his bag when she let herself in and flopped down on the rumpled bed, staring disconsolately at her things as they continued not to pack themselves.  
“You off?” She asked.  
“Yep.”  
Mona tried not to look sad. It wasn't as though she wouldn't see him again in a few days, but the thought of the long road home was a bitter taste on the roof of her mouth, just for a moment.  
“Well, have fun, and I'll talk to you tonight,” she said, hoisting a smile up. “I'll stop somewhere this evening and get home tomorrow.”  
“Good. Drive safely.”  
“Always.” She got up, looked him up and down obviously. He'd brushed up well after breakfast, showered and was now wearing a tight grey t-shirt that almost made Mona feel unfeminine.   
“And have fun.”  
“Of course.”  
He pulled her to him quickly, and they kissed for a long moment before she buried her face in the crook of his shoulder, breathed in the smell of him, and reluctantly stepped back.   
“Laters, sunshine.”  
“Yep.” He hoisted his bag up to one shoulder.  
“And did you talk to Jeremy?”  
“That too.” Richard shrugged. “There's not much any of us can do apart from keep our heads down. Wasn't he due to go on something this week?”  
Mona stared at him with comical blankness.  
“He's always going on things.”  
Richard waved a hand.  
“Something comedic.”  
“That's less helpful than you seem to think. I'll look it up.”  
“Alright. Go!”  
He went. Mona sighed at the sound of the door closing, and got to work on her own packing, corralling everything on the bed before folding and tucking it into her shapeless duffel, loading her beaten leather satchel with her electronics before making one last sweep of the room, finding the novel Richard had been reading in his spare moments that had been kicked halfway under the bed.  
She shoved it in her bag and headed downstairs, taking the lift all the way down to leave her bags in the car before heading back to the lobby, where she found Jeremy with his little black laptop in a corner, typing, triangular brows knitted together in concentration.  
“How are you getting home?” she asked.   
He shrugged. “I think Andy had a train ticket for me. Or a flight. Something.”  
“Bit public?”  
“Mmm.”  
“Want to drive with me?”  
Jeremy glanced up at her. She saw, for a moment, the Jeremy from college, who turned up at the doorstep of her shared apartment in the middle of the night that smelled like the big city. Young, big hair, holding the keys to a car he couldn't afford, dejected from a girl or with a due date looming or with some other disaster on the horizon.  
He shrugged.  
“Sure, it's not like I had anything to do tomorrow. We are going to stop somewhere though, right?”  
“Possibly. Depends on how fast we get through Germany, probably.”  
“Long way home.”  
“Easier with two.”  
And she smiled, the same smile from years ago. The one that said, we got this.  
“Anyway, I've got approximately two metric fucktons of paperwork to get through before we go anywhere.” She got up  
“Where's Andy?”  
“Conference room.”  
“Good. Be ready to go later, yeah?”  
“Already am.”  
She took the staircase down from the lobby and ended up in the conference room they'd had hired out for them, with the tiny windows close to the ceiling, where Andy appeared to be holding court with paperwork. A few of the crew sat around on laptops, or sorting things, or packing up the cameras and sound equipment scattered around.  
“Andy?” she slunk in, dodged Priscilla, who was disassembling a microphone like a gun, and joined Andy at the head of the table, surveying his empire with him.  
“Yes?”  
“Going well?”  
“Relatively. We're going to be away on time. Which is good, because I have things to do at home tomorrow.”  
“Brilliant. I think we'll all be glad to get home. As picturesque as this is...”  
Mona rolled her shoulders back and took the sheaf of paper that Andy handed her. The top sheet was pure logistics, the matters of getting all the crew back to England and everything they had in their possession back to where it came from. Under that were the car declarations. She prayed, for a moment, for strength. Taking the finely honed machine of filming apart was so much more difficult than putting it together. Once it wasn't actually working anymore, it had a distinct tendency to spring apart like clockwork.  
Whoever had told her that delegation was the best part of leadership had clearly had their head screwed on properly. Andy had delegated to her the task of getting everyone and everything home while he had his hands full getting editing suite space and next week's shoot. Chasing people up, phone clutched in one hand, she managed to get the cameramen in charge of the gear, the people with cars left back at the bbc repsonsible for the range rovers, and had finally sorted out everyone's transport. Of all of them, James had what looked like the most appealing week ahead of him. There was an Aston Martin being sent for him to take around the mountains for the next four days for a magazine spread, and the photographer hadn't yet arrived. He was mostly keeping out of the way of everyone running around headlessly downstairs, but Mona found him with Jeremy in the corner, drinking coffee and sharing a bag of crisps. Jeremy looked disconsolate again, and James nudged the bag further towards him in a typically Mayish, very male comfort gesture. Mona slid sideways into the armchair that faced away from the front of the hotel, keeping an eye on the cases being carried out to one of the range rovers, glancing down at her list and going through what hadn't yet been loaded in her head. She reached forward and snagged a crisp.  
“You two look so much more relaxed than seems fair,” she said.  
James shrugged.  
“Because I am?” he said.  
Mona grimaced half-heartedly back at him,   
“I will be so glad to see my bed when I get home that I may actually marry it,” she deadpanned back at him. She wasn't sure if she was joking, either.  
Jeremy chuckled quietly. “I'm sure it'll be a beautiful ceremony.”  
“Utterly.”  
Outside, she spotted a shiny Maserati with polished paintwork and scuffed wheels pull up. Company car if ever she saw one, and a guy wearing a suit that was impossibly fashionable got out with a leather zip-up folder got out and wandered into the hotel, looking around purposefully. Clearly someone come to pick up the Maser Jeremy had been driving for the last two days.  
Mona glanced at her watch. The guy was half an hour early, but the sooner she got the press cars off her hands, the sooner she could leave. She clambered off the chair, smoothed down her top, and patted the pockets of her cardigan for the keys. It took fifteen minutes of paperwork and pacing around the white Maser in the basement for them both to be satisfied enough to sign the paperwork that meant it was no longer the BBC's responsibility.  
Mona handed over the keys, and it purred away up the ramp.

 

As opposed to London, it was nice not to have to dodge traffic jams on their way out of town and onto the motorway. With Jeremy slouched out in the seat beside her and commenting at whatever he was seeing out the window at intervals, she set the cruise control and let herself sink properly into the buttery leather, feet beside the pedals and steering from the bottom of the wheel.  
“So what're you going to do about the shitstorm?” She finally asked. The stereo was turned down to barely cover the road noise.  
“Not much I can really do,” he said. “Laugh it off as well as I can. Keep a bit quiet. Just... You know. It's so revoltingly moronic, but it makes my life so much more difficult for a while.”  
Mona flicked her eyes over to the silenced satnav.  
“It's not easy,” she said measuredly. “But you...” she paused, glanced over. Jeremy, sulking, glaring ahead at a Peugot which clearly didn't understand how motorways worked. The look that could practically burn when applied from a height of somewhere in the vicinity of six foot ridiculous, directed squarely at the barely-visible rear-view mirror.  
“You've got the ability to bluff your way through a hurricane,” she finished her thought.  
He laughed. Quiet, easy amusement.  
“No man can bluff a force of nature. And the media is made up of human nature, which is worse.”  
“You're part of it, and that's halfway there.”  
“Nobody beats them at their own game. And it's a different game.”  
Mona shrugged. “You have friends though. Buck up. We'll get a case of wine and sit in your courtyard for the next month. Wait for it all to blow over.”  
Jeremy stayed quiet. Mona flicked a look over to him.  
There was a sly look creeping into his eyes – the sort of one that always prefaced a smirk.  
“You know what,” he said. “that might just work.”  
“What?” Mona was vaguely concerned now. She tucked her hair behind her left ear, kept him in her peripheral vision.  
“If we all... I don't know. Sent them mixed signals.”  
“What, like...”  
“I don't even know what I'm thinking there. It's probably a better idea to just lie low.”  
“Probably. Although it'd be hilarious to see what they made of you and James on a romatic date..”  
“What!?”  
“Well that's the first ridiculous thing that came to mind.”  
“Oh god.” He paused. “I wonder if they'd fall for it...”  
Mona shrugged.  
“Depends on a million things. You'd have to get people in on it.”  
“It'd be hilarious to leave Hammond out.”  
“Don't be mean. Actually, wait, that's you. Oi!” Jeremy flicked at her arm again for good measure.  
“You do know that's not a wise thing to do to the person driving the car?”  
“You're capable.”  
“I will always be glad that everyone else doesn't share your ideas of my capabilities.”  
“Bullshit. They think you're just as capable as you are.”  
The afternoon traffic scrolled on past the windows. It really was a beautiful part of the world, Mona thought. Just a shame that it took forever to get there by car. As they stopped to refuel three hours later, she stretched herself out next to the car, twisting her back around to work out the kinks that had quickly made their home amongst her vertebrae.  
“Do you want to stop somewhere for the night or keep going?” She asked. Jeremy looked around from where he had his eyes fixed unseeingly on the numbers flicking on the bowser.   
“It'd be a bit stupid to go on,” he said. “We wouldn't get there before three in the morning.”  
“Less traffic through Germany though,” she mused. “Did you have anything to do tomorrow?”  
“Not particularly. Why don't we see where we get to by, I dunno. Ten? It's still another four or five hours tomorrow.”  
“Sure. Want to drive?”  
“Absolutely. You know how I feel about Germany.”  
Mona shook her head and went inside to pay.


End file.
